With a tawdry plot and a short list of suspects, Twisted gives armchair detectives an easy chance to figure out whodunit. Critics roasted this pulpy potboiler, in which Ashley Judd (attempting to repeat the thriller succes... more &raquos she had with Double Jeopardy and High Crimes) plays a San Francisco homicide detective who is her own prime suspect in an ongoing serial murder case, in which all of the victims are men she recently slept with. These one-night stands, and a problem with alcoholic blackouts, make Judd's wine-drinking character the loose cannon on the case, and her partner (Andy Garcia) and police commissioner mentor (Samuel L. Jackson) have their own reasons for wanting the case to close. Apparently nobody bothered to point out numerous weaknesses in Sarah Thorp's B-movie screenplay, and with no apparent interest in the proceedings, director Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff) allows Judd to look silly, Garcia to overact, and the whole movie to unfold in murky darkness and dimly lit rooms. Kaufman, Judd, and her costars are capable of better. --Jeff Shannon&laquo less

Movie Reviews

Shame on you, Philip Kaufman!!!

J. R. SOUTH | Albany, New York USA | 03/01/2004

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Although I wasn't too impressed with the "Twisted" previews, when I saw that Philip Kaufman directed it, I fairly flew into the theater on opening day. Is this the same Philip Kaufman who directed excellent masterpieces like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", and "The Right Stuff"? If it is, I fear he's been replaced by a pod person. And what did high-grade stars like Ashley Judd, Andy Garcia, and Samuel L. Jackson think when they read this poorly thought-out script?The story, about a newly-promoted homicide cop (Judd) who has peculiar sexual habits and then discovers that, one-by-one, her gentlemen partners are getting beaten to death, does have potential, and one can imagine what someone like Hitchcock could have done with it. But the screenplay and direction are so cliche-ridden and unbelievable, it was truly hard to not laugh all the way through it. There was a moment, when I considered that maybe it was supposed to be a spoof.Humorous moments include Judd's Jessica character repeatedly getting polluted, passing out, and then jumping off the sofa to run immediately to the scene of a crime, without so much as brushing her teeth, but all the while looking like her usual knock-out, gorgeous self. When Jessica comes clean to her superior (Jackson) about her realtionship with the victims, does he think that maybe he should at least TRY to take her off the case, especially since all the bodies are "signed" with a cigarette burn, and Jessica constantly keeps a unlit cigarette with her that she never smokes but taps furiously on tables? Then there's the repeated shots of Jessica's elderly, Oriental neighbor gawking at her through the window, that's thrown into the movie only to go nowhere.Oh, yes, there is also the rest of the San Francisco police department, played by a cast of "actors" who must surely have gotten their parts because they're related to one or more of the producers. Their portrayals of police officers are the most politically incorrect and boorish charicatures you're likely ever to see on the screen. One of the guys, who gives Judd a particularly hard time all through the film, does a turn-around at the end that only a dime-store trash novelist could dream up. The climax and resolution is a fiesta of incredulous humor.I did give the movie two stars: One for Ashley, because she does try her best and looks great; and another star for the beautiful "City by the Bay" scenery."

Sirens anyone?

Samuel McKewon | Lincoln, NE | 02/28/2004

(1 out of 5 stars)

""Twisted" is a howler, a straight-to-video script with three good actors - Ashley Judd, Samuel L. Jackson and Andy Garcia - turning in the worst performances of their career and one pedigree director - Philip Kaufman - shooting a few pretty scenes of San Francisco and then apparently calling it a day. Paramount dumped the movie in late February to catch a few wayward moviegoers suckered by the trailer; instead the studio finds itself up against Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," robbing Judd of her fan base of young, impressionable southern women. That demographic should take heed: This is no "Kiss The Girls" or "Double Jeopardy." It's not even "High Crimes," a more apt title for these lost two hours.Judd, flouting about in a boy's haircut again - no actress gets more mileage out of the exact same look - plays Jessica, a San Fran homicide inspector working her first case with grizzled, creepy partner Mike (Garcia). The murders are the work of a serial killer who burns victims on the hand with a cigarette then beats them to death. The hitch? Every dead guy has had a rough, nameless one-night stand with Jessica, who gulps red wine and conveniently blacks out on the night of the murders from intoxication. The police chief (Jackson) has an interest in seeing Jessica succeed; he has raised the girl since her father, a cop himself, went on a killing spree, shot his wife, then committed suicide. Is Jessica working out her rage during the blackouts? Is it another pining for Jessica's affections? "Twisted" provides about nine possibilities. The screenplay, by Sarah Thorp, raises the stakes in the poker game of tin ears. A lawyer threatens to attack Jessica "with both guns blazing!" Another character exclaims "they put me on the no access list!" The killer, whom I will not reveal, seethes, "I did this for you!" Another murderer who has no relation to the central plot whispers, "You're just like me!" Jackson's character refers to himself as the "master" and likes to preface lines of dialogue with the word "Test!" Basically an exercise in red herrings, Thorp supplies Jessica with a cigarette she does not smoke and Mike, who presumably makes six figures, with a dingy houseboat that might double as a murder house. There are creepy dreams, whispers in the night, voices in the wind, a box stuffed with childhood dolls and murder photos, harassing cops down at the precinct, a crazy ex-lover, an elderly Chinese neighbor in the window, numerous allusions to seals, and a shrink (David Strathairn) who prods Jessica for emotional truth and might as well be listed as "Filler" in the credits. Well, "Twisted" is just an awful motion picture, coherent but preposterous, riddled with the kind of coincidences and misunderstandings only teen comedies usually suffer. Judd, who strode confidently into the movie business with "Ruby In Paradise" and "Normal Life," now seems perfectly content to play the same tomboy sweetheart again and again, all false trust and feisty vulnerability, wounded and bamboozled. She's still cute and quick with a look, but pluck at 35 plays a little different than pluck at 27. Garcia has simply morphed into a ham; he clearly loves it, and will eventually find a role that suits that lifestyle choice. Jackson is an embarrassment in an embarrassing role. Are the parts in "Basic," "xXx" and this movie the ones he wants to make sure rappers don't get?"

No progress toward wellness for sick puppy Ashley Judd

Connie Furr | Georgia | 11/14/2004

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Don't watch this. Don't risk having nightmares about Ashley Judd as I've had. Back when she drug all my sensibilities through the mud with EYE OF THE BEHOLDER, I took a small solace in the assurance that a movie couldn't get any worse than that. But now ghastly Ashley has proven me wrong. I think I'd rather see her play an acknowledged serial killer (however much the the movie pussyfoots around in moral ambiguity about it) than see an equally mad woman legitimized as a cop. Yep, a cop. That's what she plays this time. I guess I must admit EYE OF THE BEHOLDER, as vacuous as it is, seduced me somewhat with Ashley's macabre sick puppy persona. It made me really want to see her get better. Something inside me wanted to see her use her talents (which are nothing if not far above her will to make decent movies) to do something really worthwhile and elevating. So guess that is why I threw caution to the wind and went to see TWISTED. But the cop she plays therein never saw a civil liberty that she wasn't fixing to ravenously trample upon. In the opening scenes, she is arresting a suspect. After she has his hands cuffed behind his back and him helplessly onto his knees, she says, "One more thing!" and then kicks him in the nose as hard as she can! Story resolved, or at least it should have been. Time for this cop to go the way of the beaters of Rodney King. We still do believe that Rodney King was wrongly treated, don't we? Apparently not, if even the limited credibility that this movie has usurped is any indication. She goes on being a cop and treated as the movie's hero! But her unrestrained rampage is by no means over. She will become quite understably a suspect in the murders she's investigating. But she will madly assault her colleagues when they sugggest that it is understandable that she's become a suspect. For better or for worse, the movie never suggests any "turn about's fair play" notion. While she's a suspect nobody ever kicks her in the nose. The movie goes on through a supposed resolution that cannot at all dig this lurid misfire out of the hole of its premise. While the original real villain of the movie proved herself villainous from practically the start, but gets to go on to be "vindicated" as a "hero", the "real villain" gets exposed as a villain only in the end. Do yourself a favor and don't bother with this. It is nonsense. Avoid it."

Don't waste your time

Viewer from Dubai | DXB | 09/09/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"It only requires 2 words to describe the movie. "ABSOLUTE CRAP"."

Sorry but this movie is not twisted enough to actually work

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 02/29/2004

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Our plan was to go see "Monster" this afternoon but we live in the sort of place where a movie like that gets shown only at night so that they can run some kid friendly movie during the day (we have a limited number of screens up here in the Zenith City). So we decided to go see "Twisted" instead because I happened to catch Samuel L. Jackson on the CBS morning show last Friday. Jackson, who found out that he is the best selling movie actor on DVDs, said he did the script because he never saw the ending coming. If that is true, then either they did some major changes in Sarah Thorp's script by the time the film was finished or Jackson has been making too many movies and needs a break because everybody saw this one coming."Twisted" is set in San Francisco, where Jessica Shepard (Ashley Judd) has just caught a big time bad guy, been promoted to inspected, and assigned to the homicide department. She also has made a habit of picking up strange guys in bars, going to their apartments for some rough sex, and then going home and drinking wine until she passes out. It turns out that when she was a kid her father, who was also a cop, went on a killing spree before killing her mother and then shot himself. Jessica was raised by her dad's partner, John Mills (Jackson), who is now the police commissioner. At her new job she has a new partner, Mike Delmarco (Andy Garcia), and on their first case they find a body that has been savagely beaten and washed up from the Bay. It happens to be one of her one-night stands. Then another body pops up, with the same tell tale brand, and it turns out she slept with this guy too. The rule with a film like this is that to play fair the murderer has to be above the title in the credits, which means we have only three suspects. We do not see the murders so we know that it cannot be somebody we have not seen and there is only one other remote possibility in the rest of the cast. But then I am afraid that based on the description of the film in the previous paragraph I probably gave you enough information to figure out who the identity of the killer. If I have indeed done so I think that rather than apologizing you should thank me, because going to see an Oscar nominated film that you have already seen would be more worthwhile than spending time and money on this one. Wait for it to come out on DVD so that you do not feel like you have been taken for such a ride.Because she took one free shot against a psycho that was trying to kill her, Shepard has to go see a department shrink (David Strathairn), who attends his sessions wearing a gun. Of course he wants to deal with the fact that she tells everybody her parents were killed in a car accident instead of rehashing the horrible truth and she feels no pressing need to talk about the fact she keeps passing out at night and wakes up the next morning to learn about another dead body being checked off the list of her former lovers. But then the S.F.P.D. as a whole is not too bright: when the third victim pops up with the same connection they have Shepard's partner interview her for 5 minutes. Either (a) she is the killer or (b) the killer is someone she knows or who know here. Either way, a detailed examination of her life and habits would be in order. For writing the cops as being stupid "Twisted" loses an additional star to go along with the two it loses for being so easy to figure out. The second sin is the greater offense, especially with "Twisted" coming at a time where so many films have been successfully playing mind games with characters and audiences. When you think of films like "Fight Club," "Memento," "The Matchstick Men," and other films of that type, even if they did not succeed in completely fooling you at least they were ambitious in the attempt. With "Twisted" I could not even find any good reasons not to think that it was who it obviously was, especially when the clue is just overacting.. I know this is the highest rating anybody has given this review to date, but I have a long- standing policy of saving one stars for reviews of snuff films."